Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991 TAG: 9102220714
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
"We must hear publicly and authoritatively his acceptance of these terms," Bush said. He said of a Moscow peace plan: "Any conditions would be unacceptable to the international coalition."
In a Rose Garden appearance to make public his ultimatum, Bush said Saddam had "launched a scorched-earth policy against Kuwait," even while his foreign minister was discussing peace plans in Moscow.
"They are destroying the entire oil production system of Kuwait," the president said of the occupying Iraqi forces.
Bush said he had consulted with Desert Storm coalition leaders and they had agreed to describe their terms for Iraq to withdraw. A ground assault to force this withdrawal is thought otherwise to be imminent.
A Pentagon official said in the meantime that the Persian Gulf War continued unabated.
The president said he appreciated the Soviet peace initiative, but said the statement issued from Moscow had attached conditions to what it said was an unconditional offer of troop withdrawal.
"The time has come to make public with specificity just exactly what is required of Iraq if a ground war is to be avoided," Bush said.
He said the international coalition arrayed against Iraq "will give Saddam Hussein until noon Saturday "to do what he must do to begin his immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait."
Bush said that while Iraq's Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, was in Moscow "talking peace," Saddam Hussein "was launching Scud missiles."
He said Saddam "risks subjecting the Iraqi people to further hardship unless the Iraqi government complies fully" with the demands.
The White House was releasing a formal statement that Bush said "would go into considerable detail" on coalition demands of Iraq.
At the Pentagon, a senior military official said the diplomatic activity was not derailing the allied war plans.
"Desert Storm continues to swirl on, regardless," the official said. "We have our plan and we continue to follow it. Round-the-clock air attacks continue."
Bush's comments were his first since the peace initiative was unveiled, and came as members of the allied coalition arrayed against Iraq and lawmakers were offering their own assessments.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Kurtcebe Alptemocin told reporters before meeting with Bush at the White House that "we should not allow him [Saddam] to withdraw heavy weapons, especially chemical weapons." He conceded that imposing such a condition on any settlement "will be very difficult."
In London, British Prime Minister John Major said the proposal was "not good enough," but still an improvement worth studying. France said the plan "represents a step in the right direction."
Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a leading Republican, said the Soviet-sponsored talks with Iraq are "not in our best interest at all."
"We are attempting, I suppose, to retain some good humor with Mikhail Gorbachev. But the plans which have come forward this week are almost as difficult to fathom as the ones last Friday," Lugar said on NBC's "Today" show.
"Clearly we ought to continue to prosecute the war. We ought to continue to push Iraq out of Kuwait unconditionally," he said.
Rep. Lee Hamilton, interviewed on the same program, said the proposed peace plan had "very positive aspects" but also "plenty of things wrong with it," chiefly the call for lifting sanctions on Iraq.
"The problem here is that we are poised on the brink, I think, of a decisive military victory," said Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat. "You do not want to undercut that with an ambiguous political settlement. And so it does put the president in a difficult spot."
Baghdad radio reported today that the allied ground offensive had begun, with Iraqi troops beating back an attack led by a British armored division. American officials scoffed at the claim.
"If the Iraqis are leaping to the conclusion that the ground battle has begun on the basis of a single division shooting artillery fire," the Pentagon official said, "then they really don't comprehend the strength of the firepower of the coalition."
The Soviet-Iraqi peace plan followed days of diplomacy between Moscow and Baghdad. Shortly after it was announced, the White House expressed serious reservations but carefully avoided rejecting the plan outright.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev telephoned Bush to outline the proposal, which a Soviet official said had drawn a positive response from Iraq, and the superpower leaders talked for 33 minutes.
Fitzwater said that in his talk with Gorbachev, Bush "did state the concerns that he felt the coalition would have on this matter." He said the president thanked Gorbachev for his efforts.
The plan fell short of Bush's full war aims, yet it seemed to offer a way to gain Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait without the massive and potentially bloody land assault that the United States has been pointing toward for days.
by CNB